Wouldn’t all of those, besides finance, probably be engineering-related jobs? I think is industry of the company, not the role? I would assume they are engineering roles in a manufacturing company…and working at Dartmouth in an engineering research capacity? I am making some assumption there, but I don’t think the are staying for a 5th year and then going to do marketing at a Consumer products company..
I, for the heck of it, looked in my network in linkedin. I am in New England, know a lot of people who went there or are friends of friends who did..
I know 4 people with BE engineering or BA engineering sciences degrees from Dartmouth..
1 did the BE 5th year AND BA dartmouth and is a real EE … does EE work. (30 years out)
1 did BA (non ABET) and is a PhD tenured prof in MechE at an R1! (?!?) so went straight to grad school somewhere else.. (30 years out)
1 did their 5th year at Dartmouth from a different LAC and is not really an engineer (maybe industrial engineering adjacent) (15 years out)
1 did AB in eng. sci. (non abet) and is a lawyer (guessing never wanted to be an engineer) (20 years out)
The classification is inconsistent, which makes me suspect that it based on survey responses. Alumni were asked about their “employment sector”, and it was the alumni’s choice which among the n options to choose in the survey. I wouldn’t expect “all” of the persons working in non-finance sectors have engineering-related jobs, but many of them no doubt do. Looking up grads on LinkedIn, I see some in more engineering related positions, and some in less engineering related positions.
For example, among BE grads on LinkedIn the most common employer after Dartmouth was BCG. Job titles at BCG include associate, consultant, and managing partner. The 2nd most common employers were Microsoft with job title software engineer and Whoop with job titles product marketing lead and mechanical engineer.
Fwiw, my son (WPI grad this spring) starting salary was $80k with a $10k signing bonus, working in a very rural area (using his MechE degree, not his CivE). His best friend, working in SF Bay area, started at $120k (he has a BME degree). At $80k my S22 feels like he’s the lowest paid of his engineer friends (but trade off is that he’s also definitely living in the lowest cost of living area) so outcomes may be higher than you expect for the non top name engineering schools.
The ‘human-centered engineering,’ small classes, & language classes at Dartmouth are all appealing.
If this is the case your son enjoys foreign language classes, then you should probably consider applying to Dartmouth, RD, and seeing what happens. Most engineering programs do not require them, though you could take them to fulfill humanities/social science electives.
Since the Dartmouth application is a long one, you would probably need to replace it with another 1 or 2 apps, likely a reach as well, so you can balance the college list a little.
“Whoop with job titles product marketing lead and mechanical engineer.”
I did a a little research on this and the engineering grad in that lead product marketing role had a few jobs before joining Whoop. I’m not sure if your point was about roles straight out of college or roles in general.
I was replying to other poster’s question, which was quoted in the post. I did a quick search on LinkedIn to provide more detail about the inquiry, which returned current job rather than first job after BE. Immediately after his BE, this particular student pursued a MEM at Dartmouth while simultaneously founding a company related to developing modular workspaces for students and professionals via a MEM fellowship. At times he has worked with job titles that sound more related to engineering and less related to engineering.
My original comment from the earlier post was, " As one would expect, recent Dartmouth Engineering Sciences grads often work in non-engineering sectors, in positions that are less common among EEs, MEs, and similar." and I stand by that comment. I don’t mean to imply that this is good or bad… more that Engineering Sciences majors tend to have a different job distribution than typical EE/ME majors. For example, I’m not surprised to see a far higher rate of finance and consulting among Dartmouth Engineering Science majors than Stanford EEs/MEs.
Are Dartmouth general education requirements more voluminous than those at MIT, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Columbia, various Catholic universities, California State Universities, UCSD Revelle, … ?
Dartmouth does not seem to be known for engineering the way Stanford is, so it may be more important to complete the ABET accredited degree if one wants to work in engineering (as opposed to traditional Ivy League jobs in finance and consulting, where the non-ABET version should suffice).
Are we considering those in Education, the vast majority of whom are most likely engaged in a lot of engineering or engineering-related research to be working in a non-engineering sector? How about those in Manufacturing? Or even Consumer Goods or Consulting or Health?
FWIW, I wasn’t “dismissing reported data” - I actually haven’t clicked on any of the data reports, so I have no skin in that game. I think a lot of job outcomes - regardless of school you go to - depend on (1) hustle and (2) what you are looking for. The engineering industries pay differently - you’ll make less doing CivE work than you will doing MechE who will make less than an RBE engineer (generally speaking). And that doesn’t describe the delta between the CivEs who go into environmental/water compared to those that go into petroleum. And then there’s the locality differences. So there’s just so much more to the story than raw salary data.
But back to the topic at hand - if OPs son loves Dartmouth, and knowing the “downsides” of the program, this is the choice that works best for their family, then that’s the argument for the program. It’s what fits their needs and wants. I think this thread generally has jumped the shark a bit since I don’t think OP was necessarily asking about salary related issues.
In total number of courses and in percentage of curriculum, yes.
There’s some nuance of course. The CSUs and UCs have less, but make it even easier by allowing AP to be used in lieu of taking courses at university. The others on the list don’t.
The reading at Columbia is arguably the most intense.
HMC dedicates close to the percentage that Dartmouth does but gets it done in 4 years.
The HASS curriculum at MIT is quite a bit lower in percentage and number of courses.
Brown and Tufts have dual degree programs that get you out in five and have more non-technical courses, but they both have a 4 year ABET option.
I’ll leave it at that, as we are drifting from the OP’s original question.
Additional ideas for schools with access to skiing/cold winters/snow and ABET-accredited engineering programs that can be completed in four years:
Michigan Tech - safety/low match
Colorado School of Mines - low match/match
Cornell U - reach
Syracuse - match
Lehigh - high match
Lafayette - high match
Bucknell - high match
University of Colorado - match
Colorado State - low match/match
U of Wyoming - low match/match
U of Idaho - safety/low match
U of Utah - low match/match
U of Washington - high match/reach (for Eng)
Boise State U - safety/low match
U at Buffalo - low match
There are more. I did not even look at New England. This list might suffice if he were open to other regions.
If the 5th year is doable without burden, go ahead and shoot for Dartmouth – it is a fantastic school. But there are 4-year ABET-accredited options in similarly wintry environments with close access to skiing.
As discussed in the earlier reply, I expect this is based on alumni survey responses. The listed “employment sector” is whatever the alumni selects in the survey pulldown asking about their “employment sector”.
Among engineering sciences grads, the 3 most common employment sectors were education, consulting, and finance. The most common employer in each of these sectors and an example job title at the listed employers is below. Some of these positions are likely more related to engineering and others less related to engineering, rather than a black and white where jobs are either 100% engineering or 0% engineering.
Education – Employer = Dartmouth, Job Title = Teaching Assistant
Consulting – Employer = McKinsey, Job Title = Business Analyst
Finance – Employer = Goldman Sachs, Job Title = Analyst
I didn’t see the OP mention grades so it’s hard for me to know the match/target/reach etc. analysis. Bucknell checks off a lot of the boxes. It’s engineering school is a notch above the liberal arts side. That goes for reputation and difficulty of getting in, but also the type of student. Bucknell has a reputation for having wealthy, preppy kids. That’s reputation is earned. But that’s kind-of Dartmouth’s reputation as well. The Bucknell engineering students are a bit more diverse (in personality if not racially or socioeconomically). My son’s roommate is a biomedical engineering student. He has his fraternity friends, and some engineering friends outside the Greek system.
Skiing isn’t super close, but you can have a car sophomore year and my son and some friends drove to a couple Poconos mountains.
I was not addressing you - you reported data and said that was low end. Most seem to think the #s these schools put out are false and that’s just reckless thinking. Why would school’s lie? But the comment was 100% not directed toward you.
And yes, majors pay differently…as do locations. When my son had a 6 month rotation in Irvine, he received - not enough - but $700 more a month - to go on top of his $82K start (b4 the targeted 10% bonus) in 2023. The salaries are real and many engineers are leaving jobs and taking others, thus creating more openings.
OP will be fine at Dartmouth - but at any of the others too.
Totally agree. And, like you, I have no skin in the game. I know a little bit about the place; I’ve met lots of people over the years who graduated from there and no one I know ever attended Dartmouth in order to learn a specific trade. They may have had different talents and different academic interests, but they mostly liked “the vibe” of the place, especially the natural surroundings and especially the skiing. None of them worried that - as someone said upstream - with a little hustle they wouldn’t land on their feet. Places like Dartmouth basically exist in order to point undergraduates in the right direction whether that be employment or further schooling, and generally do it through a combination of home-grown networks and connections - and reputation. The toughest parts are getting in and paying for them.
I should not have assumed – you are right. I figured that if the kid is strongly considering Dartmouth, he likely has strong grades and scores.
I also really like Bucknell – rural, plenty of outdoorsy things to do nearby, very high-quality academics, and even a fair bit like Dartmouth in terms of social and sports vibe.
Looking at the map, I see the river basically bordering campus, as well as Bald Eagle State Park (which includes a large lake) to the west – looks like about an hour away.
Do kids ever fish that river (Susquehanna) or head out to the state park?